The Rural Voice, 1978-10, Page 27DDT ban called a mistake
One of the biggest mistakes of the
century was the banning of DDT, United
States agriculturalist C.E. Howe told the
annual meeting of the Canadian Hatchery
Federation in Winnipeg recently.
Howe said the next major mistake will be
the banning of nitrates as food preserv-
atives and that DDT was regulated out of
use by governments without good scientific
evidence.
Howe said the same thing is happening
to nitrates now because of scare tactics.
The claim that DDT was the great killer a
decade ago and the resulting loss of its use
must now be recognized as the cause of
people dying unnecessarily," he said and
then made reference to seven cases of the
plague in New Jersey in 1977, sleeping
sickness that swept the south last year, the
fact that yellow fever had returned and that
malaria hasincreased700 per cent in India
in the last few years.
As examples of this, the pressure to ban
nitrates is increasing because of claims
that they are carcinogenic and, if they are
banned further, processed products such
as bacon can not be produced safely." he
said.
The major problem seems to be more
one of politics than statistics. Howe said
there are activists who feel that modern
agricultural methods are ruining the planet
and so must be stopped and they say that
farmers must go back to organic farming.
"As a result, restraints are being placed
on the world's leading suppliers of food
that will make it more and more difficult for
them to keep up with the population
growth."
Once again the poultry and meat
industries are being attacked by environ-
mentalists with scare messages such as
"Cancer in your meat, cancer for lunch; eat
chicken and die young" but Howe said the
naturalists and environmentalists making
these statements know very little about
agriculture.
Chemical industry
told to clean up image
The chemical industry has a bad image
according to Dr. Boysie E. Day, professor
of plant physiology at the University of
California and he's not the only one who
thinks so.
Farmers, politicians. bureaucrats and
the companies who make the pesticides
were all urged to fight back and to
"educate the public" when the annual
meeting of the Canadian Agricultural
Chemical Association was held at the
Harbour Castle Inn in Toronto recently.
Dr. Day said the industry's critics are
wealthy people with time on their hands,
children of rich parents who have joined
the counter culture, hypochondriacs
(people who imagine illnesses), political
opportunists, food faddists, mystics,
pastoralists, environmental religionists
and those infected with the "liberal -
political syndrome."
Asked to defend the industry, Federal
Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan
complained that he shouldn't be expected
to defend the industry on his dwn but he
mentioned a news release he had issued to
defend continued use of 2,4-D weed killer
when it became the centre of controversy in
a proposed lake -control program in British
Columbia.
He also recalled how his family sprayed
�' M£RN£R'S
CUSTOM KILLING
& PROCESSING
Slaughtering day Wed.
PICK UP SERVICE AVAILABLE
Complete Wholesale Restaurant Supplies
1/2 Mile South of Dashwood's Main Intersection
Phone 237-3677
George Smyth builds the bean cutter in his Auburn welding
shop and various Western Ontario dealers sell it.
Mr. Smyth is selling his machine direct to dealers.
"We are too busy making them (cutters). If a customer needs
a service call, it is easier for the dealer to make the call than us,"
he pointed out. Mr. Smyth employs five men who do various
other' welding jobs as well as making the cutters. This year the
Smyths have put in two acres of beans that they'll demonstrate
the Smyth Bean Cutter on. -
Dealers offering the Smyth Bean Cutter are: McGavins Farm
Equipment, Walton; H. Lobb and Sons in Clinton; George
Wraith, Goderich; G. & E. Sales and Service in Lucknow; Hyde
Farm Brothers Farm Equipment in Hensall; Tye's in Thorndale;
Perth Machinery Ltd. in Listowel; Gilmore Farm Supply in
Harriston; Doupe's Equipment Ltd., Kincardine; and Logan
Farm Equipment in Mitchell and A.G. Farm Equi ment,
Woodham, Ont.
George Y S m t
Welding & Machine Shop
"WE BUILD THE BEST AND REPAIR THE REST"
Phone 529-7212 R.R. 2, Auburn, Ont.
THE RURAL VOICE/OCTOBER 1978 PG. 27